Category Archives: Law School

In The social job market, Alex Halavais points to and discusses some thinking about the skill set that tomorrow’s engineers will need. If you presume an outsourced world, it’s different from what they are getting today — much more foreign language and culture, interpersonal skills, and (remote) management.

I wonder what the similar skill set should be for tomorrow’s lawyer.

• The languages and sensitivity to globalization issues, foreign, comparative and international law, are almost conventional wisdom already, although execution lags.
• ADR is a big part of the package.
• Using technology is big, although understanding the technology is not, sadly, nearly so obviously necessary unless one’s specialization touches it directly.
• I’ve blogged previously about the importance of basic statistics.
• Many people believe that given the increased specialization of our profession, the law schools should start helping students specialize earlier. Two signs of this trend are certificates for JD’s and the profusion on (money making!) LL.M programs. Here, I’m agnostic. I think that there’s a fine case to be made that the push to specialization in practice actually increases the need for law schools to ensure that their graduates have a decent generalist grounding, for they may never have another chance at it. And both the realities of practice and of malpractice show that lawyers at least need to be able to identify (but not necessarily solve single-handedly) issues outside their specialties before it is too late.

I knew these aphorisms:

• Lord Acton: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely
• Anon: Those who recall Lord Acton’s dictum are condemned to repeat it
• Anon: Power corrupts, powerpoint corrupts absolutely
• Advert: Bad power corrupts, get a line conditioner

But now I need to add another one:

• Even a small amount of Decanal power corrupts instantly.

Both Eugene Volokh and Orin Kerr have interesting thoughts on law school grading curves.

The details of UM’s first-year grading policy (set out below) are not, to me, particularly intuitive. The basic principles, though, make sense: we have multiple sections in the first year, and we want to do equity between them; yet, we don’t want to ‘force’ any professor to give As that are not in that teacher’s opinion deserved.

After the first year, there is no required curve for regular faculty (and I don’t use one), but adjuncts — who we presume may not know our system as well, and who also have a greater incentive to grade easy in order to inflate enrollments and positive feedback — are on a curve.

I haven’t looked at it carefully, but our first year curve seems a little lower than Orin and Eugene’s accounts of UCLA’s and GW’s; our upper level curve — to the extent we have one — seems very similar.

Some of the colleagues would justify the relative difficulty of our first year curve on the grounds that even though they are rising, our students’ average credentials are still somewhat lower than a top-25 school’s. And, especially at the low end, first-year grades can provide an important signaling role to students who should think long and hard before spending tens of thousands more on tuition.

Other colleagues, and many students, have argued for inflating the curve on the grounds that everyone else is doing it, so we should to.

Personally, I have never gotten very involved in this debate, on the grounds that a rational hiring partner in a firm will look at class rank, not grade average — and we provide class rank information. Many students, however, end even some practitioners, have argued to me that firms are not as rational in their hiring as I would expect…

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It isn’t going to win me many friend with students, but I have to say that Yair Listokin is basically right: Statistics Should be Mandatory for Law Students. I’ve long believed that statistics should be a near-prerequisite for law school, and if you haven’t had before law school we should offer it for credit, and encourage — maybe even require — students to take it.

Meanwhile, if you’re an undergraduate thinking of going to law school, may I point you to my FAQ about going to law school, which for many years has included this advice:

If you really want to be a good lawyer, I don’t personally recommend
majoring in anything directly related to law as an undergraduate, or even
taking courses in
it. That includes “Juvenile Justice”. Colleges always teach the stuff “wrong”
from the point of view of a lawyer – maybe right from the point of view
of a cop or probation officer or something, but wrong from the point of
view of someone who needs to work with law rather than recite it. So you
will start out behind the other students since you will have to ‘unlearn’
what you think you know. Really.

Far, far, better to major in something that teaches you about the world:
history, economics, literature, math or even art. You will get all the
law you need in law school – why waste college getting a 3rd-rate version
of it? Why not get the stuff that makes you a well informed person, and
thus a much better lawyer in the long run.

The only rule that over-rides the one above is: major in what you like
best. Because ultimately you will get the best grades in what you like
best, and grades count! A lot. A whole lot. Especially if you are not going
to college at a very high prestige Ivy League or similar school.

If possible – it’s not essential – I’d try to take the following courses
at some point regardless of what you major in:

• two semesters of economics
• at least one Intro to Philosophy and/or Political Philosophy
• as much US history as you can stand (law is about context, and precedents
  must be understood in the context of their times)
• a course that covers the structure of the US political/governmental system

Big bonus points if you can manage a course in basic statistics.

I also **very** highly recommend you subscribe to a first-rate national
newspaper and read it every day (your college may have a student discount
deal). You will learn essential information about the political and legal
system without even realizing how much you are learning. The New York Times
is the best, but if your interests are more business oriented then the
Wall St. Journal or the Financial Times are ok too. Local papers don’t
really have enough national and international news to cut it.

Get the above under your belt and you are really ready for law school!

 

Incidentally, UM Law has a very good page for people thinking about law school, 28
Critical Questions about law school. (There used to be 29 of them, but one seems to have gone non-critical.) They even give the answers, which shows it is about law school rather than being like law school…

I give take-home exams frequently, and a thankfully small number of my students could probably profit from reading Alex Halavais's wicked valedictory essay, posted as he leaves teaching¹ at least temporarily for pastures new: How to cheat good.

Fortunately, the type of student who needs this advice probably isn't reading here.

¹ Update: Er, seems I was wrong about that, as explained in the comments…